


Tix At The End

by amanda_jolene



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Gen, TRIGGER WARNING IN SUMMARY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1996296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amanda_jolene/pseuds/amanda_jolene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's got a choice. TRIGGER WARNING: Talk of character death, ED, child abuse, brief mention of rape. If any of these things things trigger you, please do not read this work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tix At The End

She’s moving. 

Left foot, right foot, right foot, left foot. Burning 400 calories she didn’t eat but the motion keeps her from thinking too much and the counting keeps her from crying. 

She’s not a whole person, not really. Hasn’t been since she was a child and she knows now that she never will be. There’s not healing for a girl like Tix. Too scared to put her feet in the water, too uncool for Rae to have dinner with. She starts ot think maybe some people were born for greatness and some for failure and she falls in the latter category and she pushes herself just a little harder. 

Left foot, right foot, right foot, left foot.

She doesn’t remember falling but there’s the feel of carpet beneath her hands and on her cheek. 

Kester stands over her, hands folded in front of him with a smile on his face. “Well, here we are.” 

It’s odd, she thinks, that he doesn’t move to help her up. It’s even weirder when her knees buckle and he keeps his composure. “That happens sometimes,” he tells her. “The afterlife business takes a minute to get used to. Sort of like getting your sea legs, you know.” He wobbles and she laughs and he finally grabs the tops of her arms and hauls her up. 

"Where are we?" 

He shrugs. “You tell me, Tix.” 

They aren’t in the hospital anymore. There’s a great expanse of white all around them and she squints to keep from going blind. “I’m dead, aren’t I?” 

"Not quite," he tells her, pointing a finger up. "Listen." There’s a soft beeping all around them and she catches the faint smell of sterilized hallways. "Hanging by a teensy thread." 

"What are you doing here then?" 

"You tell me! This is your play, so to speak." He walks around her and holds out a hand that she does not take it. "When children play God with their own lives and the time comes, there’s a choice. To go back. To stay here." 

"There’s no reason for me to go back." 

She knows this Kester is all in her head and she’s safe here for once in her life but she still won’t take his hand. “You never know who you’re leaving behind.” 

"No one." 

It’s the truth. There were never any visitors. Not from the father who abused her physically or the mother who let him. Not the grandmother who called her fat and pinched her tummy or the uncle who plagued her nightmares. She preferred it that way because if they ever infiltrated her space at the hospital, she’d have no where else to hide. 

"Walk with me." 

The great expanse of white shifts, morphs into a room filled with beeping machines and her body laying prostrate in a hospital bed and there was Rae, holding her hand and saying “I’m so sorry, Tixy.” 

"Rae would miss you." 

She would, Tix knew that. But she also knew that Rae had a chance to live her life. She had a chance to leave the hospital behind and have friends and kiss boys and be touched. Rae was her best friend but Tix very badly wanted to tell her to grow up and move on and stop thinking the whole damn universe revolved around her because it didn’t. Rae had chances. Tix didn’t. 

"Are you supposed to be convincing me to stay?" 

Kester shrugs, mouth tugging up. “Am I?” 

"Rae doesn’t need me. Rae needs to move on from this hospital and to leave this all behind."

"What about Danny?" 

She thinks of Danny and the ducks and how he wasn’t a whole person either, but he was more than her. Sweet Danny who heard voices in his head that could only be tamped down by two hats. Danny who never had any visitors except in his dreams and would never live outside the confines of white, sterile walls just like Tix.

"I’m not going back." 

The scene shifts, tilts and they’re back in the great expanse. She and Kester face each other and she asks, “What have I ever been in control of?” 

"This. All of this is you." 

She looks around and there’s suddenly a streak of blue and green at the end of the expanse and she takes his hand, finally. “I’ve only ever wanted to be in control.” 

"I’ll miss you." There’s a terrible fondness in his eyes and she wonders how many children Kester will watch die before he breaks and who’s going to lead him home. 

And then she’s running towards the smell of spring and for once it has nothing to do with calories and she flings herself into the arms of eternity.

(And back at the hospital, Kester hold her hand at the first long beep of the end of her life.)


End file.
